Nine neonatologists who spent years caring for Southern Oregon’s most medically vulnerable newborns are no longer practicing under their former arrangement at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center, leaving the region’s only neonatal intensive care unit operating under a changing physician structure as the former doctors organize publicly around staffing, patient safety and transparency.
The separation brings a months-long transition inside Rogue Regional’s neonatal program into sharper focus. The Medford hospital continues to operate its Level III NICU and is recruiting physicians and advanced-practice clinicians, while the nine neonatologists who previously provided care through the program have established an advocacy organization following the end of their relationship with Asante.
For Southern Oregon, the change reaches considerably farther than a personnel dispute inside a single hospital. Rogue Regional is the destination for premature and critically ill newborns transferred from smaller hospitals across Southern Oregon and portions of Northern California. The 378-bed medical center serves a nine-county region, and Asante identifies its Level III NICU as the only facility of its kind between Eugene and Sacramento. Its neonatal transport operation reaches nine referring hospitals, moving infants to Medford when they require intensive treatment unavailable in their home communities.
That regional responsibility remains in place while Asante changes the physician organization behind the service. The transition became public earlier in 2026 when reports emerged that the nine neonatologists were losing their positions. Asante disputed reports at the time suggesting the physicians had already been removed from the NICU. They remained at Rogue Regional during the transition and continued providing round-the-clock neonatal coverage while the health system prepared to implement a different arrangement during the summer.
The previous arrangement subsequently ended, and the nine physicians left the program. Rather than disappear from the regional medical discussion, the former neonatologists organized. Their advocacy effort has placed questions about staffing, clinical experience and administrative transparency before a Southern Oregon population that relies heavily on Rogue Regional for advanced newborn medicine.
Asante has continued operating the NICU throughout the change. Available information does not show that neonatal intensive care has been suspended, nor does it establish that Rogue Regional is functioning without neonatal physician coverage.
Instead, recruitment underway at Asante shows the hospital building the clinical workforce around its neonatal program. The health system has sought neonatologists for Rogue Regional’s Level III NICU, with duties extending from direct treatment of critically ill newborns to neonatal resuscitation, emergency response and management of high-risk deliveries. The physicians are also expected to participate in newborn care throughout the Asante system and accept transfers arriving from hospitals across Southern Oregon and Northern California.
Recruitment has extended to neonatal nurse practitioners and registered nurses. Asante’s staffing information describes continuous NICU operations supported by physicians, advanced-practice clinicians, nurses and a neonatal transport team.
The change is occurring inside a hospital system already navigating substantial workforce pressures. Asante announced plans during 2026 to eliminate at least 300 positions while addressing a projected financial shortfall. Those reductions followed hundreds of job eliminations announced in 2024. At Rogue Regional, labor negotiations involving more than 1,200 nurses have added another dimension to the hospital’s staffing environment, while more than 250 health care technicians have also pursued collective bargaining representation.
The Oregon Nurses Association has criticized reductions affecting Asante’s clinical workforce and has identified the departure of neonatologists among its concerns. Those statements represent the union’s position and do not constitute a finding that neonatal care at Rogue Regional is unsafe.
No state or federal regulatory determination reviewed in connection with the dispute establishes that the physician transition has compromised patient safety. The former neonatologists’ concerns therefore remain separate from any formal government conclusion concerning the quality of care being delivered inside the NICU.
The reason Asante chose to end its previous relationship with the nine physicians has not been explained publicly in enough detail to establish whether the decision was principally financial, administrative, clinical or part of a broader restructuring of neonatal services. Asante had previously indicated that it was exploring partnerships with academic institutions and other regional medical providers as it developed its plans for the program.
What has emerged is a significant change in who provides physician services inside a neonatal operation with few regional alternatives. For hospitals in Grants Pass and other communities outside Medford, advanced neonatal medicine cannot always be provided locally. When a newborn arrives extremely premature, develops serious respiratory complications or requires another level of intensive treatment, Rogue Regional can become the receiving hospital. Its neonatal transport team exists specifically to move those patients into the Medford NICU.
The hospital’s service territory includes Jackson and Josephine counties and reaches into Curry, Douglas, Klamath and Lake counties, along with Del Norte, Siskiyou and Modoc counties in Northern California. The geographic scale leaves Rogue Regional carrying a neonatal role uncommon for a hospital outside a major metropolitan area.
Against that landscape, the departure of nine experienced neonatologists represents a substantial reorganization of a specialized medical workforce. The former physicians are now pressing their concerns publicly from outside Asante. Inside Rogue Regional, neonatal intensive care continues while the health system recruits clinicians and establishes the physician structure that will carry the program forward.
For Southern Oregon hospitals sending critically ill newborns to Medford, that transition is already underway. Rogue Regional remains the region’s neonatal referral center, its NICU remains open, and the medical team responsible for one of the most demanding forms of hospital care is being reshaped while the physicians who previously staffed the program challenge how that change was carried out.